Floyd Elementary fourth-grader Alyssa Biskner, 10, adjusts the "weasel-tailed headband" of Elizabeth Lopez, 10, during what fourth grade teacher Judy Lee coined "our Native American experience" at the school on Friday. "I don't like it upside down," Lopez said, although the headbands are meant to be worn with the tails down. "We try to get as much authenticity in as we can," Lee said of the experience.

The drum beats started shortly after two fourth grade classes took over Floyd Elementary School's community room.

The homemade drums that each student decorated with American Indian symbols were part of an afternoon of creative lessons for the students. They had spent a few weeks learning about the history and culture of America's native peoples.

Teacher Jessica Reder led a group of students in making dreamcatchers, which hung from native cradleboards to stop bad dreams from reaching babies, but let the good dreams pass through.

"They believed that that would protect the baby from any evil that would visit them at night," she told the students at her table.

The classes spent time visiting the Chippewa Nature Center and Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways in Mount Pleasant, and now had a chance to get hands-on with crafts to remember what they had learned.

"It's not all as authentic as possible, but it reinforces some of the things we've learned," Reder said.

One of her students, Kirby Huntoon, said she liked the field trips her class took.

"I like what I'm learning about my culture because I'm part (American) Indian," she said.

She learned that berries could be used to dye clothing, that wigwams and longhouses were built for housing, skins and furs were made into clothing and travel was often done on rivers, like the one near the school.

Floyd Elementary fourth-graders, from left, Cody Otto, 10, Justin Martin, 9, and Alyssa Biskner, 10, work on weasel-tailed headbands with fifth grade teacher Jamie Moses during what fourth grade teacher Judy Lee called "our Native American experience" at the school on Friday afternoon.

Her classmate Maiden Bolton said she enjoyed the message in some of the lessons.

"They never wasted anything they caught," she said. "They used all of it."

Laura Sira, a parent volunteer, said it's been good for her sons to learn about the native culture, and the event Friday was a fun way to continue the lessons.

"It's kind of neat that they learn the roots of our America," she said.

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